The Theory Of Recollection By Socrates

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In the Phaedo Socrates claims that the soul is indeed immortal, that it lives forever and cannot die even after the body has died, thus philosophers spend their lives devaluing themselves from their body. Socrates presents the Theory of Recollection to persuade his fellow philosophers that have convened inside his cell that the soul is immortal. In essence, the recollection argument refers to the act of learning, because the soul is immortal, according to Socrates, then this suggests that when a person is learning something they are actually relearning it, because their soul has existed before they were born. This idea of recollecting knowledge is prominent and is the most convincing argument in proving the existence of immortality through the soul, however, this argument does not suggest that the soul continues to exist after death and lacks clarity regarding what truly happens after a person dies. Socrates uses the word “recollection” extensively in the Phaedo dialogue, by this he is asserting that learning is simply recollecting knowledge. Socrates explains to Cebes, one of the philosophers present in the cell that day, that according to the theory, “we must at …show more content…

The most obvious problem with the recollection argument is that while it does offer plausible points about why the soul is immortal it only really discusses that the soul must have lived before. Nevertheless, it fails to offer a valid point regarding what happens after death, how does the soul live on after? Moreover, this argument is similar to the Cyclical Argument, which suggests that everything that can change must have come from its opposite, this is Socrates’s initially argument. Yet, much like cyclical argument, the recollection argument is a circular argument which really does not go

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